The girl nodded merrily. She was a slim, lissome creature, who might have seemed a boy had it not been for the exquisite fineness of her features and her crown of sun-pierced yellow hair, scarce covered by a jaunty little hunting-cap. She was Saxon, beyond a doubt. The youth beside her, a lean-flanked stripling of twenty, was as plainly Norman. His face was dark and narrow and his nose aquiline. His black hair already was clipped close for the helmet. He held his stallion as easily as the girl controlled her mare. "We are fair on him now," she answered. "But look you, Hugh, he makes toward the London road, and if he wins across we may lose him in the wilds beyond." "He'll not go far, except the Saints speed him, with this handicap," retorted the young man confidently. He turned in his saddle. "How far hence is the London Road, Ralph?" he called back. The giant with the long-bow pressed his steed closer and peered ahead. "'Tis closer than I like to think of, Messer Hugh," he said. "There is another long ride, and then----" They spoke in that peculiar dialect of Norman French which was the language of the ruling class in England and of its retainers. The girl interrupted with an exclamation, pointing her hunting-spear toward the far distance where the ride ended in an arched opening that showed dusty-white. Midway of it trembled the red brush of Dan Russell, and hard after him raced the hounds. Hugh stood up in his short stirrups. "On, Pelleas! On, Hector!" he cried. "Bravely, hounds! Harrow! Out, harrow!" He touched his heels ever so lightly to the grey stallion's flanks, and the big horse flew over the leaf-strewn ground like an arrow from a long-bow. The black mare closed up to the stallion's flank, and hung there, graceful as a swallow in flight. With a despairing yell, Ralph was left far behind. His lumbering war-horse, good only for joust or battle-charge, was hopelessly out-classed. That was a brave race. Dan Russell forgot to flick his tail, and put every ounce of his plucky heart into out-distancing the hounds. Across the white highroad, he knew, there was a wilderness untracked by winding rides, virgin forest that rolled away across several shires, peopled by the red deer, charcoal-burners, the forest's wild things and out-laws. Foot by foot, yard by yard, the hounds overhauled him, but Dan Russell kept his lead. He might have kept his freedom and his life, too, but when he burst from the ride onto the highroad, scrambling up the embankment the Romans had raised when they built it, he found himself in a confused huddle of horsemen, who shouted and reined back and spurred ahead and blocked his escape effectually.